15 post event survey questions to ask at your next event

After you host an event, you probably think you know–more or less–how it went. Until, that is, a colleague stops you in the hallway to tell you how much she enjoyed the karaoke mixer you thought hit a sour note with the office.

Experiences vary, which is why, after any event, it’s important to collect feedback from as many participants as humanly possible. To make sure that you are getting the most valuable feedback, here are a few lists of the 5 powerful post event survey questions that you should be asking for public events, training courses, and conferences.

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Public events

Public events like fundraisers, store openings, and trade shows help your organization reach people outside your immediate circle. Maximize public participation in future events by finding out what keeps people coming back for more.

How satisfied were you with the event? Ask participants to rate the date, location, speakers, vendors, and catering of the event. Ask follow up questions about the most important aspects of the event, like the keynote speaker.

What did you like most about the event? Leave this question open ended. While post-event surveys are great for identifying pain points, they also help you discover what you did right.

What did you like least about the event? Invite participants to give constructive feedback with a straightforward question like this. Leave this question open ended, so that participants can elaborate.

How likely are you to attend one of our events in the future? It’s far easier to convince a former participant to attend another of your events than it is to convince someone completely new. Discover how many participants are ready to join your future events.

Conferences

Professionals come together at conferences to share knowledge, set industry standards, and build their networks. Ensure that you only host awesome conferences by asking participants these follow up questions after every event.

How satisfied were you with the conference? Ask participants to rate the date, location, topic, mixers, sessions, speakers, and catering of the conference. Evaluate the event’s overall success with this question, before diving into the specifics.

In your opinion, did the conference meet its objectives? A conference without clear objectives wastes people’s time. Ask participants to rate whether or not the conference met concrete objectives like, for example, setting specific professional standards.

How well was the conference structured? Even the best speakers don’t shine at poorly organized events. Discover how intuitive your participants found the conference timetable to be.

Was there enough time for discussion? Nothing kills conference excitement faster than a droning speaker does. Conferences thrive on a subtle balance between instruction and discussion.

Which topics would you like to see covered at future conferences? Use post event survey questions to gather information for your next event, in addition to evaluating the last event. Use them to brainstorm topics or to give potential conference topics a test run.

A great conference doesn’t end on the last day. It leaves participants with meaningful connections that they’ll follow up with later, and with speaker anecdotes that they’ll be repeating for years. Figure out if your conference is one of the great ones by reaching out to participants afterwards.

Training courses

A successful professional training course expands its participants’ career opportunities by offering them new, useful skills. In a changing job market, ensure your courses measure up every time by routinely asking participants these 5 follow up questions.

How satisfied were you with the course? Ask participants to rate the date, location, sessions, and instructors. Be sure to include each instructor separately, since participants might be satisfied with one instructor, but not another.

How useful was the information presented in this course? Ideally, participants will be able to immediately apply the information they take away from training courses to their jobs. Evaluate the relevance of the course with this question.

Did the course improve your skills? Ask participants to rate whether or not the course improved their skills in each of the areas it was designed to improve.

Did you have an opportunity to ask questions during the course? Gauge whether or not participants felt comfortable speaking up during the course—or were even given the opportunity to speak up—with this question.

What would have made the course better? Don’t shy away from asking for feedback outright. End your post-event survey with an open-ended question that lets participants comment on whatever they think is most important.

Training courses need to evolve to stay relevant. Don’t make decisions in the dark; instead, use the valuable data you collect in post event survey questions to steer your training courses toward continued success. While it’s a good idea to ask participants for feedback before, during, and after an event, post-event surveys often provide the best insight. Use the questions above as a jumping off point when writing your own post event survey questions.